Cunctan's Square by Ajayajayaj
Cunctan's Square is a turned based puzzle game where the world is slowly disappearing.
You are the blue square, and you must move to the green square. Avoid the red squares, they will move in random directions.
While you move, the walls will start coming in, making it harder to play. So, be as fast as possible.
Screenshots

Complications
This LD was really weird for me, I was at a camp with limited cell service/internet access for friday and half of saturday. I then was in a car driving back, which was hard to work in. However, I still ended up making something that I am proud of, enjoy!
Note
The web version is slow, I suggest using the downloaded version.
| Source Code | https://github.com/ajayyy/LD42 |
| Windows | https://theajayyy.itch.io/cunctans-square |
| macOS | https://theajayyy.itch.io/cunctans-square |
| Linux | https://theajayyy.itch.io/cunctans-square |
| Source code | https://github.com/ajayyy/LD42 |
| Other (document) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S08n1JfmdSw |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/cunctans-square |
Ratings
| Overall | 223th | 3.591⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 311th | 3.326⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 262th | 3.37⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 314th | 3.652⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 384th | 3.196⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 476th | 1.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 439th | 2.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 32🗨️ |
Anyway, the game have some lags and it freezed on level around 6. No, wait, it is back.
Thank you very much for the comment :)
The mechanic is executed well, and I appreciate that there is never an impossible situation with the white blocks. One thing I would have liked in the level design is fewer long tunnels. Red enemies tended to block my path there, and all I could do was wait.
If anything could be done to improve the performance, that would also be good, since it gets a little bit frustrating having to wait for the turn to complete.
A final note is that it would be good to have some predictability in the red enemies movement. It felt random which direction they went. Learning how to avoid them consistently would have been a neat feature.
Overall though, a great entry, and it was a lot of fun to play!
One thing to mention is the performance, it lagged quit a bit on me, specially during the transitions (of which I only got to see a few because sometimes the game would just stop). But that's how compo goes, you can't fix everything!
Anyways, I really had fun playing it. Great work here!
@terracottafrog Now that I think about it, I see how frustrating long tunnels can be, especially if one or two enemies get stuck in them since there is only a 25% chance the will move in the direction you want.
Thanks for the feedback!
it's been said already, but i think giving some indication on where the red blocks would go would eliminate the unfair aspect of the randomness involved in their movement. also there are some cases where you can move directly through them (if you're standing right next to them, move into them and they move to your original spot, the level doesn't reset)
overall a very pleasant game, good job!
Very cool that the exit path can never get blocked.
@divinenephron thank you and others who gave this feedback, I can definitely see how that could help.
The game ran pretty slow while calculating turns for all the players and walls. I'm curious to see your algorithm and a post-jam improvement of it.
I'm still on the fence on whether or not audio would have made it better. :thinking:
Overall, I gave it a 4.5/5, mainly due to the performance issues.
P.S. What does Cunctan mean?
Thanks for commenting :)